


The Weight Of Guilt

by Nightwinging_it



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reyder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 03:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18328136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightwinging_it/pseuds/Nightwinging_it
Summary: When a mission goes wrong and Reyes Vidal gets shot, Ryder struggles with the guilt of the incident.





	The Weight Of Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> This was absolutely not what I intended to write but here it is I guess?? I just write so much of goofy/injured Scott I wanted to write him being serious and this happened instead whoops

Reyes was so used to Scott Ryder being a clumsy idiot with an infectious laugh that he sometimes forgot how ruthless Scott could be.

An exile knelt on the ground, hands in the air and anger on his face. Scott had a gun pointed at him, eyes trained on his target.

“Cora?” he said, not taking his gaze away from the exile.

“Fine,” she said as she applied medi-gel to where the exile had stabbed her in the arm.

Scott fired a shot from his pistol into the wall next to the exile’s head. The exile winced and glared harder.

“Where’d your boss go?” Scott demanded.

The exile spit on Scott’s foot. Scott cracked the pistol against his jaw.

Reyes watched with vague interest. He’d joined Scott and Cora in hunting down a band of exiles who’d been causing trouble around Kadara. While the exiles hadn’t been causing him too much trouble, he’d still wanted to take care of them before they became his headache too.

Supposedly, they’d been working to supply information on Initiative personnel to the Roekaar so the Roekaar would take them out. A few bodies had turned up, and the Pathfinder and his crew were ready to shut down the deadly alliance by any means necessary.

Scott had come storming into Reyes’ room in Tartarus a few nights earlier, angry but trying not to lash out at Reyes because of it. They’d used Reyes’ connections and SAM to determine the location of the leader of this band of exiles, and had set out to hunt him down.

But his men had covered for him so he could escape, and now this sole survivor was their only hope of finding his location. Reyes knew Scott was desperate and determined, a combination that made him vicious.

The exile spit blood on the ground and gave a savage grin. “You can kill me, but it won’t stop our plans. Fuck you Nexus types.”

Scott grabbed the man’s wrist and slammed it against the ground, pressing his gun against two of the man’s fingers. “I don’t need to kill you. I have other ideas.”

Reyes wondered what kind of soldier Scott had been before he had so many lives in his hands.

Cora didn’t look pleased at the turn of events, but she clearly understood what was at stake, and didn’t stop Scott. Reyes had used brutal methods himself, and he kept his lips firmly shut and watched.

“Cora, check their terminals. See if they left anything behind,” Scott said, tightening his finger against the trigger of his gun. “If there’s nothing to take from there, we’ll try my method.”

“You’re just a child. You don’t scare me,” the exile snarled.

“I don’t need to scare you to blow your fingers off,” Scott said. “I just need to pull the trigger.”

“Reyes, check this,” Cora said, tossing him a datapad.

He caught it and began to scroll through it, trying to watch Scott out of the corner of his eye to make sure the exile didn’t try anything. The man was right; Scott was much younger and much less muscular than him. But Scott was also the one with the loaded weapon.

The man was glaring at Cora, but he shifted that gaze to Reyes, who promptly ignored it by turning his eyes to the datapad. It was only when he peeked back that he saw it.

The man gave a sudden fierce twist of his wrist, yanking his hand away just as the gun fired, letting out a harsh cry as part of his finger was lost in the shot. He didn’t slow though, just used his momentum to slam Scott to the ground and wrestle the pistol away from him.

Reyes chucked the datapad at his head, which was enough to briefly get his attention. Reyes threw himself into the man, hearing the gun go off and just praying it missed Scott.

Reyes couldn’t grab his own gun and keep the pistol from blowing his brains out, so he focused on trying to keep the gun pointed at anything but him. He dropped low suddenly, sliding his pistol into his hand as another shot missed him, trying to aim at the man’s stomach.

But another shot rang out and Reyes cried out, falling to the ground at the pain in his leg, his own gun falling from his hands. The man swung the pistol around to point at Reyes’ head, but let out a startled yell as he was surrounded by a blue glow, lifted off his feet, and flung across the room, crashing into the far wall hard enough to dent it. He slumped to the ground and Cora rushed forward, disarming him and slamming his head against the ground to make sure he was really out.

“Reyes!”

Scott dropped next to him, hands holding his shoulders and panic on his face. There was blood on his shoulder, but his focus was on Reyes.

“Bastard shot my leg,” Reyes managed, gritting his teeth. “Shit, Scott, I’m done going on missions with you. One of us always ends up like this.”

Scott dragged one of Reyes’ arms around his shoulder and helped him stand. Reyes kept his weight on his good leg, and carefully tested his injured one.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, hissing in pain as he tried to walk on it. “Not right now it won’t. But in a few days.”

Scott lifted his omni-tool towards his face. “Tempest, things went south on our end. Cora has one of the exiles. Come extract them and we’ll question him when he wakes up.”

“Ryder, you’re coming too,” Cora said sternly.

“I need to get Reyes back to the Port,” Scott argued.

“Lexi should look at his wound,” Cora argued right back, which surprised Reyes because he’d always been pretty sure she hated him the most.

Scott hesitated before nodding. “Alright. That good with you, Reyes?”

“You’re making a big fuss over nothing, Ryder,” Reyes said. “I’ve been shot before, you know. I’ll be fine.”

“Just let Lexi look at it,” Scott said, and he suddenly looked tired. “Just for once, don’t be stubborn.”

“You’re one to talk,” Reyes said, but let Scott help him outside. It was a few minutes before the Tempest landed and they boarded, Cora hauling the exile and passing him off to Vetra.

The three made their way down to Lexi. Scott sat Reyes down, taking a seat next to him as Lexi examined Cora’s arm, wrapping it and sending her out of the room.

“He got shot in the leg,” Scott said.

Lexi knelt down and started to roll up Reyes’ pant leg. Reyes winced and lightly kicked her away.

“I have more pants. Just…cut that off,” Reyes said. His leg was throbbing, but he wanted to keep his composure as much as possible.

“Of course,” Lexi said, and cut his pants around his shin, starting just above where the blood soaked his pant leg. The material fell to the floor, revealing a bloodied mess of flesh.

“It looks worse than it is,” Lexi said after a few minutes of examining his leg.

Scott’s shoulders relaxed and he put a hand on Reyes’ lower back. Reyes clenched his fists as Lexi began to clean and dress the wound.

“It’s probably best if you stay here for the night. I’ll change the bandages in the morning and then you can go back to the Port,” Lexi said.

Reyes was perfectly capable of changing his own bandages, but he knew it was probably best if he stayed. Scott seemed tense, and Lexi kept darting her gaze to him as she spoke to Reyes.

“If only I had a place to sleep on the Tempest…” Reyes said, grinning as his words trailed off.

Scott didn’t look amused, but he helped Reyes up and tried to play along. “I think I might know a place.”

They left, taking the short walk to Scott’s room. Reyes was still limping, but he didn’t need to rely on Scott not to fall, which was good for his dignity.

Once they were in Scott’s room, Reyes sat on his bed, examining his wrapped leg. His pants looked awkward with the way they were cut, but he’d worry about that later.

“Will you quit pouting? I didn’t think there was an expression that looked bad on you, but you’ve proved me wrong,” Reyes said.

“It’s not funny, Reyes!” Scott said, his voice angry and frustrated. “You got shot because I was incompetent.”

“I got shot because an exile aimed a gun at me and pulled the trigger,” Reyes said, dragging himself to his feet and going over to Scott. He wrapped his arms around the Pathfinder’s waist and rested his chin on Scott’s shoulder. “You didn’t have her look at your shoulder.” Scott’s other shoulder had blood drying on it, but Scott waved that away.

“I just got grazed. The bleeding’s already stopped,” he said, pulling Reyes’ hands off so he could pace again. He raked his hands through his hair. “You could’ve been killed. You would’ve been if I wasn’t a biotic.”

“Well, good thing you’re a biotic,” Reyes said.

“Reyes!” Scott finally turned to face him, gripping Reyes’ shoulders. “I almost got you killed!”

Reyes realized the weight of the guilt Scott felt, and his easy going mood disappeared. He looked Scott in the eyes, expression serious.

“You did not almost get me killed. You were surprised and overpowered. Cora and I weren’t paying attention,” Reyes said. He reached out, cupping Scott’s cheek in his palm. “Scott, don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself every time something goes wrong or someone gets hurt.”

“How can I not?” Scott demanded. “I dragged you into this. I brought you along. And I let my guard down enough for that exile to take my gun and shoot you with it.”

“I am fine,” Reyes assured. “We all are. That exile? Not so much. I think you shot off his middle finger, so at least he can’t flip you off when you go question him.”

“This isn’t funny,” Scott said, his grip on Reyes’ shoulders tightening. “I’m the Pathfinder. I need to do better. I need to…”

“Protect me?” Reyes raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been protecting myself just fine this whole time.”

He pulled Scott close, hugging the other man to his body. He knew what it felt like to take all that guilt on yourself. When you were the leader, you felt every injury, every death, every cut and bruise was on you.

“Stop blaming yourself. It’s over, it was no one’s fault, and I’m fine,” Reyes said firmly.

Scott looked troubled when he pulled away, but he leaned forward and kissed Reyes. Reyes let the grin come back to his face.

“The biggest tragedy in all this is my pants,” he said.

That earned a weak smile from Scott. “You do look pretty stupid right now.”

“Guess I’ll just have to take them off,” Reyes said casually.

“Guess so,” Scott said. He hesitated before kissing Reyes again. “You’re okay?”

“A little sore considering I got shot in the leg at point-blank range, but I’ll be fine,” Reyes said, his voice teasing. “Maybe you could distract me from the pain.”

“That, I can do,” Scott said, pulling Reyes close to him.

As they deepened their kisses, Reyes hoped Scott wouldn’t keep blaming himself when things went wrong. Guilt was inevitable in a role like his, but Reyes would do whatever he could to make sure Scott didn’t drown in it.


End file.
